Australian GP Practice
Phillip Island
WINTRY WELCOME AT PHILLIP ISLAND
Dramatically fluctuating weather conditions marked the start
of the Australian Grand Prix today as MotoGP returned to Phillip
Island for the 16th round of the world championship.
The first practice session, held after a prolonged morning
downpour, saw the riders head out on to the 4.45km track with
Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet and Anthony West showing early
promise ahead of Sunday's 27 lap race. Both were soon featuring
at or near the top of the time sheets before the heavens opened
again, prompting virtually the whole field to return to the
pits to sit out the worst of it.
The afternoon session was run on a dry track and de Puniet
took his 800cc Ninja ZX-RR to fifth fastest on combined times
by the end of the hour, fractionally behind Valentino Rossi
with a gap between them of a mere 0.062 seconds. The 26-year-old
Frenchman's time was also within a second of the day's leading
rider, newly-crowned world champion, Casey Stoner.
Encountering only a few, minor problems during practice,
de Puniet ended the day in positive mood. Already confident
in the dry-weather tyres he used, he hopes that during the
rain forecast for tomorrow, he'll be able to define a wet
set up too, leaving him fully prepared for the race.
Australian, Anthony West, enjoying the first day of his home
Grand Prix, also seemed pleased with progress made, despite
the changing conditions. Small issues with grip, a common
feature of the circuit where the abundance of long left-handers
can prove problematic, failed to prevent a very substantial
improvement in his lap times and he completed both sessions
confident of further advancements to come.
The 26-year-old from Queensland's Gold Coast managed a best
time of 1'32.459, beating nearest rival, John Hopkins' time
by 0.815 seconds. He also clocked a top speed of 310.8kph,
just behind de Puniet's peak of 311.1kph: a good sign that
both Ninjas are on the case for Sunday.
Randy De Puniet
#14 - 5th - Best Lap 1'31.996
"I rode about 15 consecutive laps on the same rear tyre
this afternoon and my times were pretty good. I'm in fifth
position at the moment, which isn't bad but, with a new tyre,
I feel I could improve by half a second straight away. The
bike's feeling good. Today, we worked mostly on tyre choice
because we never know what the conditions are going to be
like here, which makes things quite difficult. However, if
tomorrow is wet for qualifying, then we'll be prepared whatever
the weather does on Sunday. We had a bit of movement in the
rear tyre today but nothing too bad; every year we have this
problem but we all have to deal with the same thing. The chassis
feels okay: we tried some different settings, and I'm happy
with it, but still, tomorrow we can improve the bike and the
lap times, I'm sure."
Anthony West
#13 - 10th - Best Lap 1'32.459
"We had some problems with the tyre spinning but I think
it was just the cold track and there wasn't much we could
do about that. Then we had that rain in the middle of the
last session, as well as the rain this morning, so we've lost
a bit of time to perfect our set up for the race, but I'm
feeling good so far. Also, I've been taking it fairly steady,
not pushing it 100 per cent yet, so I'm comfortable with times
we're doing, considering I'm not on the limit. The wind's
blowing us around on track quite a bit, so it's hard to judge
the set up sometimes, but yeah, we're doing okay!"
Naoya Kaneko
Kawasaki Technical Manager
"Tyre selection here in Phillip Island is quite hard
as there are many left hand turns so we need to use tyres
with a particularly hard compound on that side. This imbalance
then makes it a bit trickier to control the tyre under hard
acceleration. But this is the same for all the riders. Tomorrow,
we need to make some adjustments to both bikes to bring our
lap times down. Just alterations to the whole package, really,
to bring us right up to speed, put us in a race-winning position
and close the gap on Stoner."
1. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro Team 1'31.132; 2. Marco
Melandri (ITA) Honda Gresini +0.423; 3. Dani Pedrosa (SPA)
Repsol Honda Team +0.670; 4. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Yamaha
Factory Racing +0.802; 5. Randy De Puniet (FRA) Kawasaki Racing
Team +0.864; 6. Alex Barros (BRA) Pramac d'Antin Ducati +1.032;
7. Carlos Checa (SPA) Honda LCR +1.050; 8. Loris Capirossi
(ITA) Ducati Marlboro Team +1.071; 9. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol
Honda Team +1.184; 10. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing
Team +1.327
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